No evening classes Monday – Sun10.30.16

Monday is Halloween! We will have all the morning classes as usual, but the evening hours we will be closed. Normal hours resume Tuesday.

Exer-tainment is ‘spending’ your time. Training is “investing” it. Which one gives you a better return?

This was a question and meme posted by a buddy of mine, Jeremy Jones, owner of Thrivestry, a blog about programming for fitness and thriving. While Jeremy and I only talk every once in a while, I always enjoy how similar we have remained in our programming philosophies. Our “Performance, Fitness, Health” levels are comparable to his programming, along with influence by Joe DeFranco, John Welbourne, and Freddy Camacho.

Stop being a fitness masochist or what I like to call an: “Exer-submissive”

Beating your body into submission is not healthy. Going to war on your fat is not good for you long term. There is no enemy inside of you that need to defeat and punish. It is not your (or your coach’s) job to exact retribution on yourself.

There are varying degrees of ‘Exer-submissives’ in the fitness realm, but I feel like there is an inordinate amount that gravitate toward CrossFit (and Bootcamps for that matter). I expect that most people who exercise regularly have a set point in their personality that says: “Oh boy. I am really going to need to work hard in the gym tomorrow because of that”, or “I need to go on a long run to make up for that”. A little of this is fine, it can help people stay on track and possibly even avoid the temptation in the first place by turning it on its head: “I had better not, I don’t want to have to work extra hard in the gym tomorrow. I am already working hard enough!”

For some people, this inclination of repentance takes a much larger and dangerous role. It becomes a manifestation of the disappointment and self loathing that one feels after doing something ‘bad’.

People who take this to the extreme are not only looking to do extra work because they ‘cheated’ or missed a few days of training, they have sense that they need to be punished. They need to suffer. Pain is mandatory, and the longer the better. Bonus points if a coach or authority figure is there to yell and push even more.

There is probably a multitude of avenues to get to this mindset (upbringing at home, religion, work, biology, etc), but primarily I think it stems from two opinions:

1. You are at war with an internal enemy (you aren’t).

2. The misinterpretation that PAIN = RESULTS always (It doesn’t)……..

…….This confusion of pain and results is probably the most common and most dangerous part of CrossFit. Discomfort and pain are unavoidable symptoms of hard training, but better, faster, results come from smart programming and adequate recovery. Training ‘hard’ but not ‘smart’ is the surest way to injury, stagnation, and wasting inordinate amounts of time and money.
Read the entire article at the above link.